ARTLAND IN SHANGHAI: An Eclectic Apartment That Goes Outside the Box

ARTLAND IN SHANGHAI is a project that came about through the Chinese renovation TV show, Change your life, which brought on TOPOS DESIGN CLANS to renovate this rental apartment for a family of four. The 80-square-meter (approx. 861-square-feet) apartment is located in a high-rise building in Shanghai and the designers wanted to create a space that reflected a “realistic utopia” to help encourage a new, creative lifestyle.

The occupants are a painter, his wife, and two shepherd dogs now living in a unique home that also doubles as an art studio for dad. In their previous rental, art supplies and artwork crept into every corner of unoccupied space creating chaos and disorganization with no real space for life or art to happen. Both adults got their wishes to have a cohesive living space with an open art studio to achieve ultimate family happiness.

The open living room is now ready for life and art, using black and white as the main colors to act as a backdrop, or three-dimensional canvas, for life to add the color. A black-painted corner holds tubes of paint and palettes on the wall to look like art. Beside that is a gold pixelated display that was created from a photo of the couple’s dogs.

A partition wall slides to offer privacy while doubling as a display wall for paintings.

A pegboard wall can be changed up to display things or store stuff.

Storage cabinets hide art supplies out of the way.

The couple’s beloved dogs get their own home in a golden kennel. The surrounding golden surfaces become gallery walls to display art.

A niche is the perfect spot for keys and dog leashes.

The three private rooms, the bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, were given special, colorful attention.